Department of Health and Social Care

Health: Social Media

Rachael Maskell: To ask the Secretary of State for Health and Social Care, if she will take steps to develop tools on social media to improve health literacy for (a) men and (b) women.

Andrew Stephenson: The National Health Service website and the NHS App are our main digital tools available to citizens, to support them in accessing services and making decisions about their health.These are supported by the Department and NHS social media channels through a range of proactive media campaigns to help citizens make and sustain healthy behaviour changes, as well as receive the care they need by accessing the NHS at the right time, in the right way.Clinicians across the NHS also support patients’ health literacy by providing clear information, increasing patients’ knowledge, and sharing decision making on their care.

Health Professions: Recruitment and Training

Rachael Maskell: To ask the Secretary of State for Health and Social Care, if she will take steps to (a) recruit and (b) train more (i) medical physicists and (ii) clinical engineers.

Andrew Stephenson: The number of Scientist Training Programme (STP) trainees in Medical Physics and Clinical Engineering has tended to increase, with larger increases in recent years. The number of Higher Specialist Scientist Training (HSST) trainees has remained fairly constant. The following two tables show the number of trainees in the Medical Physics and Clinical Engineering STP each year since 2011, and the number of Medical Physics and Clinical Engineering trainees in HSST each year since 2014, respectively:YearMedical Physics STPClinical Engineering STP2011618201260142013671320147218201572820166692017732020187616201986132020771720218325202210312202311821202411715Note: The data for 2024 is subject to change, and without the Wales numbers.YearMedical Physics HSSTClinical Engineering HSST20141412015291201626220172322018122201915420201602021152202211N/A2023172202482Notes:- the data for 2024 is subject to change, and without the Wales numbers; and- data is not available for the year 2022.The NHS Long Term Workforce Plan sets out the future National Health Service workforce requirements, and includes healthcare science figures, though this is not broken down into Medical Physics and Clinical Engineering workforce targets. The plan assesses that education and training places for healthcare scientists need to increase by 20 to 34%, reaching between 930 and 1,039 places by 2033/34. The ambition set out in this plan is to increase training places for healthcare scientists by 32%, to over 1,000 places, by 2031/32. We will work towards achieving this ambition by increasing training places by 13%, to over 850, by 2028/29.The workforce plan also sets out the ambition to retain up to 130,000 more staff across the NHS over the next 15 years, through measures to improve staff’s experience of working in the NHS. This applies to all NHS staff groups, including medical physicists and clinical engineers.

Nurses: Schools

Caroline Lucas: To ask the Secretary of State for Health and Social Care, how many full-time equivalent qualified school nurses are working in a public health-commissioned (a) school nursing service, (b) zero to 19 service and (c) five to 19 healthy child programme in each local authority area.

Andrew Stephenson: Since April 2013, local authorities have held responsibility for commissioning public health services for school-aged children. These services may be commissioned from a range of providers both inside and outside of the National Health Service. NHS England publishes monthly workforce data which includes information on the number of school nurses directly employed by NHS trusts and other core NHS organisations in England. This data will not represent the total number of school nurses delivering local authority commissioned services, as it will excludes places where services are commissioned outside of the NHS. It is not possible to identify the specific service or programme that these staff are working within.While data is not available at a local authority level, the following table shows full-time equivalent (FTE) school nurses working within NHS trusts and other core organisations in England by Government Office Region, as of November 2023:Government Office RegionFTE School NursesEast Midlands140East of England161London325North East55North West434South East291South West81West Midlands286Yorkshire and The Humber207

General Practitioners: Labour Turnover

Wes Streeting: To ask the Secretary of State for Health and Social Care, what funding NHS England plans to allocate to Integrated Care Boards for local GP retention schemes for 2024-25; and through what mechanism that funding will be allocated following the closure of the General Practice Fellowship and the Supporting Mentors schemes.

Andrea Leadsom: In 2022, we saw the highest ever number of doctors accepting a place on general practice (GP) training, a record of 4,032 trainees, up from 2,671 in 2014.From April 2024, integrated care boards (ICBs) will take on greater autonomy to make decisions that serve the best interests of local people and communities. This means that, while the General Practice Fellowship and Supporting Mentors schemes will no longer operate in their current national form, NHS England will work with ICBs to put in place support that reflects their local approaches and needs. It will be for ICBs to decide how funding operates at a local level, and the amount of funding they are able to devote to the schemes. NHS England will, however, continue to support people currently on the General Practice Fellowship throughout 2024/25, and ministers will shortly be beginning a series of roundtables with GPs on the future for GP practice, that will also consider ideas for retention and training.

NHS: Databases

Wes Streeting: To ask the Secretary of State for Health and Social Care, whether she plans to include all patient records held by GPs in the NHS federated data platform.

Andrew Stephenson: The Federated Data Platform is a vital upgrade for the National Health Service, allowing it to be much more effective in how it handles its data. It will bring together information about staff, waiting times, equipment and medicines to improve patient outcomes. Based on agreements between general practices' data controllers and integrated care boards, the Federated Data Platform will have the capability to include elements of local primary care data. This would be limited to the information required to support the provision of care and would only be utilised by local organisations within the local tenants of the Federated Data Platform, and not be shared beyond a local level.

Foreign, Commonwealth and Development Office

Alaa Abdel Fattah

Caroline Lucas: To ask the Minister of State, Foreign, Commonwealth and Development Office, if he will make representations to his Egyptian counterpart on including Alaa Abdel Fattah Alaa in this year’s Presidential pardon list.

Caroline Lucas: To ask the Minister of State, Foreign, Commonwealth and Development Office, whether his Department has taken recent steps to help secure the release of Alaa Abdel Fattah in Egypt.

David Rutley: Ministers and officials continue to raise Mr Alaa Abd El-Fattah's case at the highest levels with the Egyptian government. They have been consistently clear in calling for his release and continue to press for urgent consular access, utilising a variety of mechanisms, including through public and private engagement.The Foreign Secretary raised this case with Egyptian Foreign Minister Shoukry on 22 February. As Minister of State for the Middle East, Lord (Tariq) Ahmad of Wimbledon raised this case with Foreign Minister Shoukry on 28 March and with the Egyptian Ambassador on 20 February. Both Lord Ahmad and the Foreign Secretary discussed Mr El-Fattah with FM Shoukry and President Sisi in December 2023. The Prime Minister also spoke to President Sisi about Mr El-Fattah on 1 December 2023.

Gaza: Humanitarian Aid

Andrew Selous: To ask the Minister of State, Foreign, Commonwealth and Development Office, what discussions he has had with his Israeli counterpart on opening up the port of Ashdod to aid supplies for Gaza.

Mr Andrew Mitchell: The British Government has repeatedly called on Israel to open fully Ashdod Port for aid delivery.

Ministry of Defence

Navy: Equality

Sir John Hayes: To ask the Secretary of State for Defence, how much the Royal Navy has spent on diversity and inclusion personnel since 2019.

Dr Andrew Murrison: The Royal Navy has spent £2,445,980.00 on salaries for people employed in dedicated Diversity and Inclusion policy roles from 2019 to 2023. The Royal Navy has a number of individuals whose roles encompass Diversity and Inclusion. Service Personnel rotate through postings which can include Diversity and Inclusion roles. Their work is supported by a small number of Civil Servants. Each of these individuals are paid commensurate to their rank and training. In February 2024, the Secretary of State for Defence ordered a root and branch review of ethnicity, diversity and inclusivity policies in Defence which is ongoing.

Air Force: Equality

Sir John Hayes: To ask the Secretary of State for Defence, how much the Royal Air Force has spent on diversity and inclusion personnel since 2019.

Dr Andrew Murrison: The Royal Air Force has spent £3,072,249.93 on salaries for people employed in dedicated Diversity and Inclusion roles from 2019 to 2023. The Royal Air Force has a number of individuals whose roles encompass Diversity and Inclusion. However, all Regular RAF personnel are first and foremost aviators and are paid as such. There are a small number of Civil Servants and Full Time Reserve Service personnel within the team who applied specifically for D&I roles. In February 2024, the Secretary of State for Defence ordered a root and branch review of ethnicity, diversity and inclusivity policies in Defence which is ongoing.

Department for Environment, Food and Rural Affairs

Plastics: Pollution

Afzal Khan: To ask the Secretary of State for Environment, Food and Rural Affairs, whether a Minister from his Department plans to attend the fourth session of the Intergovernmental Negotiating Committee to develop a legally binding instrument on plastic pollution, INC4, taking place in Ottawa, Canada, in April 2024.

Rebecca Pow: At the fourth session of the Intergovernmental Negotiating Committee on plastic pollution the UK will be represented in the negotiations by a delegation of UK Government officials. A Defra Minister is also planning to attend high-level ministerial events immediately prior to the negotiations.

Cocoa: Agriculture

Holly Lynch: To ask the Secretary of State for Environment, Food and Rural Affairs, what steps he is taking to ensure that smallholder cocoa farmers will not be faced with additional costs when the deforestation requirements of the Environment Bill 2021 come into force.

Rebecca Pow: The UK recognises the importance of promoting sustainable trade and development alongside action to prevent deforestation. We will continue working with producer countries to ensure that their views inform the Government’s delivery of the forthcoming Forest Risk Commodities scheme, including in respect of smallholder farmers of cocoa and other commodities.  The UK will also provide support to help countries to adapt to the new requirements, and benefit from the opportunities which this presents to increase trade in legally-produced commodities. This includes funding a new ten-year £500m phase of the UK’s Investments in Forests and Sustainable Land Use programme, which work with the private sector to mobilise investment into legal and sustainable commodity production; and provide support to smallholder farmers and poor rural communities who are most vulnerable to the effects of climate change. The UK is committed to scaling up this work in future.